


Red

by Secular_Czar



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cheryl Blossom Needs a Hug, Episode: s01e06 Chapter Six: Faster Pussycats! Kill! Kill!, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, It's SOFT angst, and innuendos, implied Cheryl Blossom/Jason Blossom - Freeform, past Jason Blossom/Polly Cooper - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27616972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secular_Czar/pseuds/Secular_Czar
Summary: Cheryl has always known Jason was her soulmate, believes it even now he is gone. She has long seen the body, buried him beside their grandfather. Still, her world is as bright and colourful as it was with him by her side.In a world where you go colour blind when you lose your soulmate, Cheryl struggles with the brightness of the world around her in her grief. That is until a certain blond crashes back into her life.
Relationships: Cheryl Blossom/Polly Cooper
Kudos: 11





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> A colour soul mates AU for Polly and Cheryl. Because I didn’t find any and when you want to read something sometimes you gotta write it.

Cheryl opens her eyes, blood pounds on her ears. Her red walls too bright to the faint candlelight, her stomach twists. She reaches for her phone with a deep breathe. Three-thirty. The image of Jason’s body doesn’t leave when she shuts her eyes. A shiver rakes through her body as she looks down to her hands. She doesn’t feel it, but she knows her body is shaking. As she pulls the duvet closer she decides to blame the numbness on her nausea.

Thud.

Cheryl knows the exhaustion is catching up to her. How she isn’t eating. And even the nightmares. She curls up praying it will stop and stares at her sheets. White until her tears blur them grey and she can’t breathe. He is gone. Bile rises in her throat. Jason is gone but her colours stayed. Her brother, her only protector, her soulmate, is now gone.

Thud.

She told herself so many times he had to be alive. She did until she saw the body. She tries to still do so when the red of his hair is still there when he isn’t. But she knows she was wrong, he isn’t alive. Her colours are just further proof her mother is right about her. Right when she says she is cursed. _Loveless._

THUMP.

Cheryl’s blood runs cold. It was her window, she shoots up. Her world goes black as she stands. Dread making her even dizzier. Her back hits the wall as she grabs the chandelier. Heartbeat pounding on her ears, she opens her eyes. Anger takes over her body as she sees Polly by the window, after two months of radio silence.

“What the heck?” She says, the loudest she dares to. Grateful her door is locked. “What are you even doing here?”

“I did knock first,” Polly says, and Cheryl allows her eyes to go down. Blood and dirt soak the ugly baby blue dress. She shivers recognizing the sight from somewhere. The red makes her chest tighten.

“This is the second floor how did you even get here, you psycho?” She says, turning the lights up further. “Why…” _Fuck_. “You’re pregnant? And you climbed the trellis? Do you have a death wish, Polly, what the fuck?”

“Do you still have colours?”

“Oh, not even hi, or an explanation?” Cheryl says, and she has the decency to at least look chastened. “Are you high on something?”

“Hi Cher,” Polly says, “blood loss only I swear.” her bright smile disarming even as she cracks a joke that makes Cheryl's stomach churn.

At loss, she stares at the blonde girl. Her face seems thinner, pale, and there are twigs on her hair that make Cheryl want to shake the girl for answers. But she recognizes she isn’t evil enough to force them out. She walks to the window and closes it. Pushing her hair back with a huff she looks back at Polly.

“Take that hideous thing off, I’ll not have you defiling my room."

She walks into her closet, not bothering with the lights as she opens the drawers, her headache ever-present. She’s looking for Jason’s pyjamas, when it hits her, much like a punch does. Polly is pregnant. Her favourite crazy bitch is right there, covered in blood, and pregnant. She holds onto the drawer when her spots darken her sight. Jason’s child, _his baby_. Cheryl wants to get back into the room, hug Polly and celebrate the only happy thing in her life for months. But she can’t.

 _Red fits me_ , she walks back into the bright room, bitter, first aid kit in tow, _it is rage._

Getting back she sees her, and the strength on her stomping leaves her. Polly sits in her vanity, naked like she owns the place. Panic rises in her chest once again – _deviant_ – so she centres in the blood until the red laced dread lessens it. _No one needs your perverted thoughts_. Polly's tan skin too pale for her liking, even while coated in red and dirt.

“You need a shower,” Cheryl says, looking at the gaping wound near her shoulder, thankful that it isn’t bleeding any more. Cheryl takes her arm in her hands, opening the kit. “You smell,” she says and Polly laughs. Her heart tightens again. She can feel blue eyes burning into her but starts cleaning instead.

She lets her mind move into cheerleading practice, intent on not letting her mind be flooded by anxiety. After a couples minutes, Polly doesn’t seem to handle it anymore.

“Come on Cher, you won’t even look at me?”

Cheryl squeezes the saline into the wound with more force, smiling as the girl flinches. Calm taking over her while she focuses. Only looks up when it’s clean, her physician would be proud, and she warns her it needs stitches.  
“Does it? Can you do it?”

“I could,” Cheryl says, a sneer taking its usual residence in her face, “It hurts and I will stop if you don’t stay still.” But she knows Polly didn’t whine like Jason used to.

“Babe it hurts like a bitch anyway, I trust you,” Polly says, and Cheryl doesn’t hold the scoff back this time. “Ok, tell me what I did wrong.”

“For starters, you didn’t answer my questions.”

“I had to see you,” Polly says, “Dad interned me at the sisters when he found out about the baby.” and her heart stops, she knows why she recognised the dress now. Polly’s eyes mirror her pain. Cheryl had been there too, for two weeks, when her mother found out about Heather. Spending two weeks there was hell, and hunt her even after two years. She can’t imagine what two months in there would be like. Her heart aches to move forward and hug her, but she is a Blossom.

“Why did you need to see me?” she says, back stiff as she coats the wound in numbing antibiotic. _Blossoms don’t show affection._

“Betty found me earlier today, and told me about Jason.” Oh. “Cher, you still have colours,” Polly affirms it and Cheryl grits her teeth, _what do I need the reminder I am cursed for?_

“I’m going to start…” She says needle already inside the girl’s skin. She doesn’t move, but Cheryl isn’t about to indulge her about it. Not when she took her moment of vulnerability to push such thing on her. Not when Polly is the only person besides Jason she ever told about the sisters’ hellish nunnery.

“I can tell. I know you noticed the blood before me being pregnant.” Polly says; a pained hiss leaves her lips. “Come on Cher Bear, you have a needle in my skin the least you can do is talk to me.”

“You know how Mumsie and Daddy aren’t the best,” Cheryl says and she nods, “I suppose you remember the scar on JJ’s leg, the one that looks as botched as his explanations for it were.”

“Yeah, he came up with a different explanation every time”

A fit of laughter fills the silence.

“I was the one who took care of it, we were nine and our parents had left us to our own devices to go to a business gala in New York. JJ went into Daddy’s office even after I said it was a bad idea, he climbed the table to play with the animal heads and managed to make everything fall.” Cheryl laughs as she grabs the bandage to set above it. “It was the moose’s antlers. He got blood everywhere. Our parents were never that bad at him, so he passed out when he saw the blood. With him out I couldn’t just carry him to our physician, or leave him to get help. It stopped bleeding after I cleaned it, but it was still an open injury. I was learning to sew with Nana Rose, so I thought it was a great idea. He cried the whole time, but he let me do it.”

“Did your parents find out?”

“Mom did, a whole year later. Nana had taken us to the physician a couple of days later so the scarring wasn’t that bad, but next summer we went to Hawaii. He was in swimming trunks. You should have seen his face. That was the only time I ever saw her angry at him.” Cheryl laughs, it tastes bitter. _Nightmare child._ “I’m done. You still need a shower, Cooper, you stink as if you ran through the woods.”

“I did, how do you think I got here, by limo?”

“Don’t get the bandages wet,” Cheryl says, putting as much poison into her voice as she can muster. _Loveless_. Her breath gets heavier, harder. A strong hand in her wrist doesn’t let her turn around, to her bed. _Should have been you instead._

“No.” _No, what?_ “You’re stronger than he was, Cher.”

“He was a better person than I will ever be”

“You deserve to be alive. You have a right to be alive. Stop letting your mom get to you.” Polly says, and for a moment Cheryl believes she has the same voice in her head.

“I’m not your on-call replacement for JJ.” _I couldn’t be if I tried_.

“No, you’re your own person and I love you just as much, dimwit.”

“Don’t call me that.” She says pulling her wrist from Polly’s hold.

“Cher, look at me” and she does, she is standing now, a good three or four inches taller than her without the heels. Her eyes are too blue. She is too close. Her heart pounds, the dizziness blurs her vision. “You remember when I first saw you two?”

She does. It was on the first day of elementary; they got in early because Penelope wanted to avoid traffic. Polly was the first person to arrive after them. The girl’s face lightened up like all holidays came at once. Her smile alone could power a car. Cheryl and Jason always had colour, but she knew she was first seeing it. _For Jason_ , Cheryl was upset and continued to be until she met Heather. She blinks as the reminder of the sisters’ makes her shiver. Pity that joy didn’t last long.

“I didn’t just first see him; it was the both of you,” Polly says. Chery feels the cold wash over her.

“No” _no, no, no_.

“Cher you know you can have more than one soulmate.”

“No.”

“I still have colour.”

“ _Fuck_.” Cheryl covers her ears, shutting her eyes so she can’t see the girl towering beside her. _No_. She can feel the other girl calling her, still talking as she screams inside her head. It can’t be. She feels Polly’s hands on her face, taking hers away. “Mother will kill you.”

“Nah, you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. We’ll be fine.” Cheryl scoffs at her. “Plus I’m giving her a grandchild.”

“She will call you a vessel and get you killed the moment you give birth.”

“Then don’t let her.”

“I don’t even like you, Cooper.” She takes support on the counter.

“Yes, you do Cher.”

“No, I don’t.” _No. Loveless. Cursed._

“Then look at me to say it.”

Cheryl’s eyes shoot up, and Polly is too close. She is trapped between the girl and the vanity. Closing her eyes again she pictures Jason’s hand in hers, focusing on her breath. She needs to make her get to the shower and put some clothes on before she has a heart attack. Cheryl opens her mouth. She wants to say she hates her, for taking Jason away, to blame her as her dad does. But her brother is dead and Polly is alive and pregnant. Her fucking soulmate. Everything seems pointless.

“Fuck you,” she says instead, holding her gaze.

“I’ll let you if you behave for me,” Polly says, unblinkingly, and Cheryl can feel her face heating up. She understands why her brother chose her, even making a point out of not looking at the exposed skin. Her mouth dries. She would too if she was in his place. She closes her eyes again; her mother would kill her if she found them like this. She could just for the fact she is her soulmate.

She opens her eyes to Polly’s hooded blue glued to her skin, taking her in like a starving man. Cheryl moves further back in the vanity as Polly presses to her. _Fuck._ Her hands leave Cheryl's, moving to her tighs, her neck. Her breath catches when they move up.

“Just look at you, you’re panting and we didn’t even kiss,” Polly says, stroking her lips.

“I’m not JJ. I can’t just be with you without consequences Polly. Hands off, you lunatic. You don’t get everything you want.” Cheryl says, taking a deep breath when she pulls back. Still not giving her much space. “What do you even want from me?”

“I want us to be a thing.”

“A thing? What are you eight?” Cheryl says, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

“I can’t exactly ask you to marry me, I know you will say no, and I don’t want you to feel trapped to me.” Polly laughs at her expression, “I am a pregnant, moody and hormonal teenager, Cher. You’re not forced to deal with me. I’m a lot right now. But I trust us to knock your parents down a peg, find out what happened to Jason, and give him justice. Then maybe a year or five down the road you will consider it… maybe?” Polly says it with so much hope in her voice it stings Cheryl’s heart.

“I do.”

“What?”

“I do like you, airhead,” Cheryl says, pulling her down and kissing her.

The kiss is soft, softer than she ever expected from Polly. Her heart is still pounding madly. But her head only screams red.

For red is also the colour of love.

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself to actually write my ideas, and publish the more than a hundred pages I have written of random stuff. So maybe there will be more to this? If college and kids don’t drive me insane first.
> 
> Beta - @tankietgirl


End file.
